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Well, after waiting around for a few days, [im]patiently tapping my fingers and anticipating the arrival of my Les Paul Special II electric guitar, it finally arrived on Saturday, and I’ve been having a blast with it. It sounds amazing, plays easily, and is a lot easier on my poor, tortured amateur fingers. I’ve been playing around with Rocksmith 2014 Remastered, and it’s a lot of fun. I’ve even begun to improve my fretwork, and, oddly, finger flexibility, and how far I can spread my fingers; because apparently, you have to have monkey fingers to play a guitar with any proficiency. Oh, I know, I need tentacles! Where’s Cthulhu when you need him?

That said, I also went to a lesson today, and it went pretty well. The instructor, Aaron made a recording of the session (I’ll spare you that pain), and it went reasonably well. I would have preferred to have learned more about playing the guitar, and less about esoteric details that I can look up on my own, but overall it went well. If I really want to know about the physics behind how a guitar works, I can look it up really quickly. I’m also a quick study when it comes to how guitar strings vibrate and create sound; it’s basic acoustics.

Overall the lesson was interesting, and I learned a bit about various types of guitar tunings, and that apparently ‘timbre’ in the music sense is pronounced ‘tamber.’ What the hell is wrong with the English language? Really? I think we need a language which is actually spelled as it’s pronounced — Romanian, for example — English is confusing, and I’ve been speaking, reading and writing it almost my entire life (I’m starting to get up there in years, too; the joys of aging, sheesh!)

I haven’t decided, for certain, on whether or not I’ll take any more lessons, as I work better alone, when I’m motivated. Also, lessons cost money, and that’s something that I don’t really have an abundance of. But, that said, Aaron is willing to help work out some kind of a deal. I’m uncertain as to the nature of it, but I’m guessing that we’ll get around to talking about that at some point.